A few unintelligible words and a fleeting gesture carry more power than a battleaxe, when they are the words and gestures of a wizard. These simple acts make magic seem easy, but they only hint at the time the wizard must spend poring over her spellbook preparing each spell for casting, and the years before that spent in apprenticeship to learn the arts of magic.

Wizards depend on intensive study to create their magic. They examine musty old tomes, debate magical theory with their peers, and practice minor magics whenever they can. For a wizard, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art.

Adventures: Wizards conduct their adventures with caution and forethought. When prepared, they can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. They seek knowledge, power, and the resources to conduct their studies. They may also have any of the noble or ignoble motivations that other adventurers have.

Characteristics: The wizard's strength is her spells. Everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition to learning new spells, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way.

Some wizards prefer to specialize in a certain type of magic. Specialization makes a wizard more powerful in her chosen field, but prevents her from being able to cast some of the spells that lie outside her field.

Alignment: Overall, wizards show a slight tendency toward law over chaos because the study of magic rewards those who are disciplined. Illusionists and transmuters, however, are masters of deception and change, respectively. They favor chaos over law.

Background: Wizards recognize each other as comrades or rivals. Even wizards from very different cultures or magical traditions have much in common because they all conform to the universal laws of magic. Unlike fighters or rogues, wizards see themselves as members of a distinct, if diverse, group. In civilized lands where wizards study in academies, schools, or guilds, wizards also identify themselves and others according to membership in these formal organizations. While a guild magician may look down her nose at a rustic wizard who learned his arts from a doddering hermit, she nevertheless can't deny the rustic's identity as a wizard.

Races: Humans take to magic for any of their varied reasons: curiosity, ambition, lust for power, or just personal inclination. Human wizards tend to be practical innovators, creating new spells or using old spells creatively.

Elves are fascinated by magic, and many of them become wizards for love of the art. Elven wizards see themselves as artists, and they hold magic in high regard as a wondrous mystery, as opposed to more pragmatic human wizards who see magic more as a set of tools or tricks.

Illusion magic comes so simply to gnomes that becoming an illusionist is just natural to brighter and more talented gnomes. Gnome wizards that don't specialize in the school of illusion are rare, but they don't suffer under any special stigma.

Half-elf wizards feel both the elf's attraction to magic and the human's drive to conquer and understand. Some of the most powerful wizards are half-elves.

Dwarf and halfling wizards are rare because their societies don't encourage the study of magic. Half-orc wizards are rare because few half-orcs have the brains necessary for wizardry.

Drow (evil, subterranean elves) are commonly wizards, but wizards are quite rare among the savage humanoids.

Other Classes: Wizards prefer to work with members of other classes. They love to cast their spells from behind strong fighters, to "magic up" rogues and send them out to scout, and to rely on the divine healing of clerics. They may find certain types, such as sorcerers, rogues, and bards, not quite serious enough, but they're not judgmental.

Game Rule Information

Wizards have the following game statistics.

Abilities: Intelligence determines how powerful a spell a wizard can cast, how many spells she can cast, and how hard those spells are to resist. To cast a spell, a wizard must have an Intelligence score of 10 + the spell's level. In addition, a wizard gets bonus spells based on Intelligence. The Difficulty Class of a saving throw against a wizard's spell is 10 + the spell's level + the wizard's Intelligence modifier. High Dexterity is helpful for a wizard, who typically wears little or no armor, because it provides her with an Armor Class bonus. A good Constitution gives a wizard extra hit points, a resource that she is otherwise very low on.

Alignment: Any.

Hit Die: d4.

Class Skills

The wizard's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Alchemy (Int), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis), Scry (Int, exclusive skill), and Spellcraft (Int).

Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) x4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the wizard.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Wizards are proficiency with the club, dagger, light crossbow, and quarterstaff. Wizards are not proficient with any type of armor nor with shields. Armor of any type interferes with a wizard's movements, which can cause her spells to fail (if those spells have somatic components). Note that armor check penalties for armor heavier than leather apply to the skills Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Pick Pocket, and Tumble. Also, Swim checks suffer a -1 penalty for every 5 pounds of armor and equipment carried.

Spells: A wizard casts arcane spells. A wizard must prepare spells ahead of time by getting a good night's sleep and spending 1 hour studying her spellbook. To learn, prepare, or cast a spell, a wizard must have an Intelligence score of at least 10 + the spell's level. The Difficulty Class for saving throws against wizard spells is 10 + the spell's level + the wizard's Intelligence modifier.

Unlike bards and sorcerers, wizards may know any number of spells.

Spellbooks: Wizards must study their spellbooks each day to refresh their spells. A wizard cannot learn or cast any spell not recorded in her spellbook (except for read magic, which all wizards can prepare from memory). Each spell takes up an average of one page per spell level.

Scribe Scroll: A wizard has the bonus item creation feat Scribe Scroll, enabling her to create magic scrolls.

Bonus Feats: Every five levels, a wizard gains a bonus feat. This feat must be a metamagic feat, an item creation feat, or Spell Mastery (see below).

Note: these feats are in addition to those granted to every character by level regardless of class. Feats granted by overall character level (as opposed to class level), and the starting bonus feat for human characters, need not be metamagic or item creation feats.

Spell Mastery: A wizard (and only a wizard) can take the special feat Spell Mastery. Each time the wizard takes this feat, choose a number of spells equal to the wizard's Intelligence modifier (they must be spells that the wizard already knows). From that point on, the wizard can prepare these spells without referring to a spellbook. The wizard is so intimately familiar with these spells that she doesn't need a spellbook to prepare them anymore.

Familiar: A wizard can call a familiar. A familiar is a magical, unusually tough, and intelligent version of a small animal. The creature serves as a companion and servant, and sometimes as an only friend.

Mana: Mana is the "life force" of magic. Each spell takes a specific amount to complete its invocation. For a Wizard, Mana is determined by his Intelligence modifier and level of his experience. Use the table below to find your character's base score, then add your character's level multiplied by their appropriate ability modifier [base + (ability modifier X level)].

For example: Shalfa is a 7th level Wizard with an Intelligence of 16. Her Intelligence modifier would be +3. Using the table below shows her base Mana at 62. 62 + (3x7) = 83. Shalfa would have a Mana level of 83.

Wizard level	Starting Mana
1	5
2	7
3	10
4	20
5	32
6	46
7	62
8	80
9	100
10	125
11	150
12	180
13	215
14	255
15	305
16	365
17	430
18	500

Wizards will gain 75 mana points plus their appropriate ability modifier per level there-after.

Starting Spells: All Wizards start with Detect Magic and Read Magic and in addition may choose a number of additional spells based on their starting level using the chart below. A Wizard may also choose a number of bonus spells equal to their ability modifier in Intelligence. These bonus spells can be selected from any spell level within the Wizards ability to cast.

After initial creation, a Wizard who gains a level receives 4 plus their Intelligence modifier in new spells. This a Wizard with a +3 modifier for Intelligence would receive 7 new spells when he advanced in a level to be chosen among any of his available spell levels. A Wizard can not choose a spell he is unable to cast.

Wizard level	Spells aquisition per spell level
	0 level	1st level	2nd level	3rd level
1	5	4	-	-
2	6	5	-	-
3	7	6	4	-
4	8	7	5	-
5	9	8	6	4

	Attack	Fort	Ref	Will
Level	Bonus	Save	Save	Save	Special
1	+0	+0	+0	+2	Summon familiar, Scribe Scroll, cast 1st level spells
2	+1	+0	+0	+3
3	+1	+1	+1	+3	cast 2nd level spells
4	+2	+1	+1	+4
5	+2	+1	+1	+4	cast 3rd level spells, bonus feat
6	+3	+2	+2	+5
7	+3	+2	+2	+5	cast 4th level spells
8	+4	+2	+2	+6
9	+4	+3	+3	+6	cast 5th level spells
10	+5	+3	+3	+7	Bonus feat
11	+5	+3	+3	+7	cast 6th level spells
12	+6/+1	+4	+4	+8
13	+6/+1	+4	+4	+8	cast 7th level spells
14	+7/+2	+4	+4	+9
15	+7/+2	+5	+5	+9	cast 8th level spells, bonus feat
16	+8/+3	+5	+5	+10
17	+8/+3	+5	+5	+10	cast 9th level spells
18	+9/+4	+6	+6	+11
19	+9/+4	+6	+6	+11
20	+10/+5	+6	+6	+12	Bonus feat